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Topic: Richard Linklater (Read 38690 times)

"Baby, you are going to miss that plane," crooned Celine, a final note of glorious ambiguity at the end of 2004's "Before Sunset." And we all would have missed that plane, if it meant we could spend more time with Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and director Richard Linklater in another sequel to the acclaimed "Before Sunrise." Linklater confirmed recently that early conversations between the three principals have centered on the possibility of revisiting the two love-struck characters several years into their marriage. "That's a thought," Linklater said about putting Delpy and Hawke's characters together permanently. "If we were ever to do that again, [a third film] would be in the belly of the domestic beast." The 46-year-old director isn't worried a second sequel would diminish the characters' enthusiasm for each other — or for deep, nuanced conversations about love, family and growing old. "In any life that goes on, there'll be more interesting stuff," he intonated. "I mean, those are interesting people. I'm sure there'd be something to dig into at some point."

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

I'd love to see them together. While yes, I realize that part of the magic in their relationship (and importantly, the films) is that it's always fleeting, I can't shake that desire to just see them happy together. The romantic in me, I guess.

Floating effortlessly between the worlds of romance ("Before Sunrise," "Before Sunset"), comedy ("The School of Rock"), cult classics ("Dazed and Confused") and even animation ("Waking Life," "A Scanner Darkly"), the affable writer/director is most comfortable when he's wearing his trademark T-shirt and shorts — and when audiences can't figure out how he'll come at them next.

Like Kubrick — and other movie masters such as Billy Wilder, William Wyler or Steven Spielberg — Linklater is more determined to leave behind a diverse body of work than a barrage of blockbusters. And while nobody can predict how history will remember him just yet, the 46-year-old director is making sure of one thing: People will still see his movies in the year 2013.

"I'm in my fifth year of a 12-year project," the "Fast Food Nation" director said recently about the ambitious project he and his small crew have been calling "The 12-Year Movie" or "Boyhood." It's a flick that could turn out to be unlike anything ever attempted before — and at a time when people are chronicling their own daily decay with YouTube montages, Linklater is aiming to depict the stages of life even more vividly.

Every year, Linklater has a quasi-family reunion with aging A-listers Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette and, along with a skeleton crew of behind-the-scenes loyalists, shoots scenes that will someday be pasted together to create an exploration into adolescence. Alongside young actor Ellar Salmon (who is briefly glimpsed in "Nation"), the group gets together annually to film Linklater's script about a troubled young boy who will eventually grow into a college freshman.

"Every year, I get together with the actors and we film a little bit," he grinned, thinking about his annual ritual. "It's about a kid growing up — that's the gist of it."

Shot in a documentary-looking style, "Boyhood" will tell the story of two divorced parents trying to raise their precocious kid. Focusing mainly on the bond between mother and son, Linklater hopes to capture the unique dependence shift that occurs between an aging child and parent — and Salmon and his remarkably understanding real-life parents have been along for the ride since the director came up with the idea a half-decade ago.

"I haven't even put the math to it yet," he laughed when asked if we should anticipate a 2013 or 2014 release. "I just know that we have fun every year getting together and doing this."

Similarly, Linklater had fun casting Hawke and Arquette in "Fast Food" roles that might creep out future audiences. "Ethan and Patricia, they play divorced parents [in 'Boyhood'], but it's perversely fascinating that they play brother and sister [in 'Nation'], so in seven or eight years from now, if that film gets finished, someone could look back and be weirded out."

The closest a movie has seemingly come to anything like "Boyhood" is English director Michael Apted's "Up" series, which has been following the lives of 14 children since 1963. Following decades of marriage, divorce and drama, the series has revisited them loyally every seven years, from "Seven Up!" to last year's "49 Up." Coincidentally enough, Salmon was the same age as Apted's subjects when he began Linklater's project.

"It's a crazy idea, but it's been an interesting process," said Linklater, who somehow gathered financing from investors who won't see a return for nearly two decades. "I'm always looking for a different way to tell a story, and that seemed like a great way to show someone growing up."

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

wasn't von trier doing something like this over a much longer period of time?

answer: yes.

He is working on a film project called Dimension, starring Udo Kier, taking a 3 minute shot every year around Christmas on different locations all over Europe over a period of 33 years. The project started back in 1991, so its premiere is expected to be in the year 2024 when von Trier will be 68. There is no script, but a synopsis mentions a poetic gangster story "which will take us around Europe and be acted out and among events and flash points."

and Udo Kier says:Dimension is a project which we have been shooting for 8 years and we aren’t allowed to talk about the story. We meet every year at Christmas, we have Christmas dinner and then we shoot one day, three minutes. So in the year 2024, we have 90 minutes and the actor will hopefully make it. So I hope I make it to then. And the actor, because he doesn’t wear make-up will grow older 30 years in 90 minutes. I am losing the hair and all that.

so shut the hell up MTV. linklater is no kubrick either, he's soderbergh and let's leave it at that.

hang on, Von Trier said this in Feb 2006:Q. In 1991 you started a film that should be ready in 2024. You wanted to shoot three minutes every year. Is that project still on?

A. No. I have abandoned it. I think we should put the material on the Internet for everyone to use it. It's like with the hunting: you just can't do everything. It's only one of my many unfinished projects. I have to admit that I'm only human, even if I struggle to be more than that. You have to be realistic at some point. Otherwise you keep making a lot of nonsense. But sometimes it's a victory to give in.

"I'm currently writing a movie based on my freshmen year in college," said Linklater. "I mean, if I was to do a general pitch it would be 'Dazed and Confused goes to college.' But it's not that, but it's kind of that. It's about spending your freshmen year in college."

Linklater, who just the night before was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame, also let loose that he is currently working on a documentary for sports cabler ESPN.

"It's really a portrait. I like documentaries as portraits of people," explained the writer-director. "So this is a portrait of Augie Garrido the head coach of the [University of Texas at Austin] baseball team. And even if you don't like baseball or know anything about it, I think it'll be an accessible film. It's really just about his life process and the way he thinks. Sports, in general, is good for the life analogies and all that."

But the experience has been less than pleasant for Linklater, making the genre one that he is not that interested in revisiting.

"Remind me never to do another documentary," he joked. "It's just so much work — so much editing. You spend your whole life in postproduction. It's all about the editing. I know so many documentary filmmakers and it's like, 'Man, they've been working on that thing for five years.' Now I know why."

SXSW 07: Linklater's Next DVDFilmmaker proclaims his love for Criterion, as well as the next film of his to go to disc.

During the SXSW conference panel titled "A Conversation with: Richard Linklater," the fan-favorite filmmaker proclaimed his love for the equally fan-favorite Criterion Collection DVDs. He also let loose with some interesting news about another one of his films that will be getting the deluxe DVD treatment.

"First off, Criterion is hands down the best DVD company," announced Linklater. "I was lucky I got to work with a local designer I'm friends with, Martin English, who did great graphics work on [the Slackers and Dazed and Confused collections]. It feels great, too, to have a film that kind of like has a final resting place if someone really wants to go back with them. Films sort of get lost, and I feel like they're sort of drifting out there."

Ironically, his love for Criterion has not stopped him from working with other home video companies, as made evident in the announcement he made regarding the latest feature of his to go to disc.

"My film SubUrbia is going to come out next September on DVD, but not with Criterion," revealed Linklater. "But Warner Home Video is promising me they will try to out-Criterion Criterion's Collection. So we'll see, but I'm really happy that that'll be coming out. It's another lesser seen film in my world."

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

“Before Sunset” is one of my favorite movies; apparently this makes it my fault that they haven’t made a sequel, joked star Ethan Hawke. “If the film had been totally ignored we probably already would have made a third one,” Hawke revealed to MTV News. “[Director] Rick [Linklater] said to me the other day, ‘It’s that whole thing of people coming up to you at dinner parties and saying [they] know what happened to [Jesse and Celine]. You don’t want to deal with it.’”

The second film ended with Jesse [Hawke] in Celine’s (Julie Delpy) Parisian apartment, listening to the love that got away sing along with a record. “Baby, you are gonna miss that plane,” she says. “I know,” Jesse replies.

Allow me to speak for all the fans of the series, then, when I ask: “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?”

“We had an idea but [it’s] not going to happen, a pretty good outline of what the next one was going to be,” Hawke confessed. “But we would need to be in production right now, because we wanted to pick up right where we left off. Rick wanted to do a short film that was just two weeks later. Time goes by so fast.”

Along with Delpy and Linklater, Hawke was nominated for an Oscar for the “Before Sunset” screenplay. But it’s his love of the characters, not the accolades, that make Hawke certain he’ll return, saying he’s all but certain to reprise his role at some point. “I’m starting to think the third one may be when we’re 60,” he laughed. “[But] I’ll be shocked if we never make another one.”

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

In an interview discussing his long and illustrious career – there is more to the man than Cousin Eddie, kids – Randy Quaid tells Chron.com that he’ll only consider doing the much discussed “Last Detail” sequel if his original co-star also returned.

"I'd have to do it with Jack [Nicholson]," said Quaid, who believes Nicholson has interest. "I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else."

In “The Last Detail”, Quaid played a sad-sack sailor en route to the brig for an eight-year sentence he didn't deserve. He's shown a good time by rebellious MPs played by Jack Nicholson and the late Otis Young. The actor was nominated an Oscar for his performance.

The sequel, “Last Flag Flying”, to be based on author Darryl Ponicsan's modern-day sequel, involves the war in Iraq. “Before Sunrise” and “Dazed and Confused” director Richard Linklater will write and direct if the film finds financing.

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

LONDON -- Claire Danes, Eddie Marsan, Leo Bill and Imogen Poots have joined the cast of Richard Linklater's "Me and Orson Welles," an adaptation of the period coming-of-age novel by Robert Kaplow.

They join Zac Efron and Ben Chaplin in the cast for the 1937-set movie, which centers on a high school student (Efron) who, while strolling the streets of New York, happens upon the yet-to-open Mercury Theatre and is noticed by its mercurial founder, Orson Welles.

He lands a bit part in "Julius Caesar," the production that catapulted Welles to the top, and spends the next week learning about life and love.

Newcomer Christian McKay plays Welles, and Chaplin ("Water Horse: The Legend of the Deep") has been cast as English film and stage actor George Coulouris.

The script was penned by Holly Gent Palmo, who worked on Linklater's "Dazed and Confused," and Vince Palmo, who is a long time collaborator with the director.

Ann Carli is producing the film, which is scheduled to shoot on the Isle of Man, London and New York beginning in February.

With backing from the Isle of Man Film Commission and Framestore Feature, the title is produced by Marc Samuelson ("Stormbreaker," "Wilde"), Carli and Linklater with Steve Christian, John Sloss and Steve Norris taking executive producer roles.

Cinetic Media will handle domestic sales, and Cinetic Media and Odyssey Entertainment are jointly appointed to rep foreign sales on the project.

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol